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JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  &  CO.,  Boston. 


THREE   MEMORIAL  POEMS. 


THREE  MEMORIAL  POEMS, 


BY 


JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


Els  oiuvbs  &pi<TTo$ 


irepl  Trdrpijs. 


BOSTON: 
JAMES    R.  OSGOOD   AND    COMPANY, 

LATE  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co. 
IS;?- 


COPYRIGHT,  1876. 
BY  JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS  :  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co. 

CAMBRIDGE. 


TO 


E.   L.   GODKIN, 


IN   CORDIAL  ACKOWLEDGMENT   OF    HIS   EMINENT    SERVICE 

IN   HEIGHTENING  AND    PURIFYING   THE   TONE 

OF   OUR   POLITICAL  THOUGHT, 

Cijts  Fohtmc 

IS     DEDICATED. 


3  Q  P.  V  ft  1 


•  "  Coscienza  fusca 

O  della  propria  o  dell'  altrui  vergogna 
Pur  sentir^i  la  tua  parola  brusca." 

If  I  let  fall  a  word  of  bitter  mirth 

When  public  shames  more  shameful  pardon  won, 

Some  have  misjudged  me,  and  my  service  done, 

If  small,  yet  faithful,  deemed  of  little  worth : 

Through  veins  that  drew  their  life  from  Western  earth 

Two  hundred  years  and  more  my  blood  hath  run 

In  no  polluted  course  from  sire  to  son  ; 

And  thus  was  I  predestined  ere  my  birth 

To  love  the  soil  wherewith  my  fibres  own 

Instinctive  sympathies  ;  yet  love  it  so 

As  honor  would,  nor  lightly  to  dethrone 

Judgment,  the  stamp  of  manhood,  nor  forego 

The  son's  right  to  a  mother  dearer  grown 

With  growing  knowledge  and  more  chaste  than  snow. 


*#*  Readers,  it  is  hoped,  will  remember  that,  by  his  Ode  at 
the  Harvard  Commemoration,  the  author  had  precluded  him 
self  from  many  of  the  natural  outlets  of  thought  and  feeling 
common  to  such  occasions  as  are  celebrated  in  this  little 
volume. 


CONTENTS. 


ODE  READ  AT  CONCORD,  APRIL   19,   1875    . 

UNDER  THE  OLD  ELM 

AN  ODE  FOR  THE  FOURTH  OF  JULY,  1876 


PAGE 
II 

35 
69 


ODE 


READ  AT  THE  ONE  HUNDREDTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE 
FIGHT  AT  CONCORD   BRIDGE,   IQTH  APRIL,   1875. 


ODE    READ    AT    CONCORD. 

I. 

O  cometh  over  the  hills, 
Her  garments  with  morning  sweet, 
The  dance  of  a  thousand  rills 

Making  music  before  her  feet  ? 

Her  presence  freshens  the  air ; 

Sunshine  steals  light  from  her  face ; 

The  leaden  footstep  of  Care 

Leaps  to  the  tune  of  her  pace, 

Fairness  of  all  that  is  fair, 

Grace  at  the  heart  of  all  grace, 


c    V      f       A'     *        ' 

"  l  l  :Ttirt>e  'Memorial  Poems. 

Sweetener  of  hut  and  of  hall, 
Bringer  of  life  out  of  naught, 
Freedom,  O,  fairest  of  all 
The  daughters  of  Time  and  Thought ! 


II. 


SHE  cometh,  cometh  to-day : 

Hark  !  hear  ye  not  her  tread, 

« 
Sending  a  thrill  through  your  clay, 

Under  the  sod  there,  ye  dead, 
Her  nurslings  and  champions  ? 
Do  ye  not  hear,  as  she  comes, 
The  bay  of  the  deep-mouthed  guns, 
The  gathering  buzz  of  the  drums  ? 
The  bells  that  called  ye  to  prayer, 
How  wildly  they  clamor  on  her, 
Crying,  "  She  cometh  !  prepare 
Her  to  praise  and  her  to  honor, 


1 6  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

That  a  hundred  years  ago 
Scattered  here  in  blood  and  tears 
Potent  seeds  wherefrom  should  grow 
Gladness  for  a  hundred  years!  " 


III. 


TELL  me,  young  men,  have  ye  seen, 
Creature  of  diviner  mien 
For  true  hearts  to  long  and  cry  for, 
Manly  hearts  to  live  and  die  for? 
What  hath  she  that  others  want? 
Brows  that  all  endearments  haunt, 
Eyes  that  make  it  sweet  to  dare, 
Smiles  that  glad  untimely  death, 
Looks  that  fortify  despair, 
Tones  more  brave  than  trumpet's  breath  ; 
Tell  me,  maidens,  have  ye  known 
Household  charm  more  sweetly  rare, 


1 8  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Grace  of  woman  ampler  blown, 

Modesty  more  debonair, 

Younger  heart  with  wit  full  grown? 

O  for  an  hour  of  my  prime, 

The  pulse  of  my  hotter  years, 

That  I  might  praise  her  in  rhyme 

Would  tingle  your  eyelids  to  tears, 

Our  sweetness,  our  strength,  and  our  star, 

Our  hope,  our  joy,  and  our  trust, 

Who  lifted  us  out  of  the  dust, 

And  made  us  whatever  we  are ! 


IV. 


WHITER  than  moonshine  upon  snow 
Her  raiment  is,  but  round  the  hem 
Crimson  stained ;  and,  as  to  and  fro 
Her  sandals  flash,  we  see  on  them, 
And  on  her  instep  veined  with  blue, 
Flecks  of  crimson,  on  those  fair  feet, 
High-arched,  Diana-like,  and  fleet, 
Fit  for  no  grosser  stain  than  dew : 
O,  call  them  rather  chrisms  than  stains, 
Sacred  and  from  heroic  veins ! 
For,  in  the  glory-guarded  pass, 
Her  haughty  and  far-shining  head 


2O  TJiree  Memorial  Poems. 

She  bowed  to  shrive  Leonidas 

With  his  imperishable  dead  ; 

Her,  too,  Morgarten  saw, 

Where  the  Swiss  lion  fleshed  his  icy  paw  ; 

She  followed  Cromwell's  quenchless  star 

Where  the  grim  Puritan  tread 

Shook  Marston,  Naseby,  and  Dunbar : 

Yea,  on  her  feet  are  dearer  dyes 

Yet  fresh,  nor  looked  on  with  untearful  eyes. 


V. 


OUR  fathers  found  her  in  the  woods 
Where  Nature  meditates  and  broods, 
The  seeds  of  unexampled  things 
Which  Time  to  consummation  brings 
Through    life   and    death    and    man's    unstable 

moods ; 

They  met  her  here,  not  recognized, 
A  sylvan  huntress  clothed  in  furs, 
To  whose  chaste  wants  her  bow  sufficed, 
Nor  dreamed  what  destinies  were  hers  : 
She  taught  them  bee-like  to  create 
Their  simpler  forms  of  Church  and  State  ; 


22  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

She  taught  them  to  endue 

The  past  with  other  functions  than  it  knew, 

And    turn    in    channels    strange    the    uncertain 

stream  of  Fate ; 

Better  than  all,  she  fenced  them  in  their  need 
With  iron-handed  Duty's  sternest  creed, 
'Gainst  Self's   lean  wolf  that   ravens  word  and 

deed. 


VI. 


WHY  coineth  she  hither  to- clay 

To  this  low  village  of  the  plain 

Far  from  the  Present's  loud  highway, 

From  Trade's  cool  heart  and  seething  brain  ? 

Why  cometh  she  ?     She  was  not  far  away. 

Since  the  soul  touched  it,  not  in  vain, 

With  pathos  of  immortal  gain, 

'T  is  here  her  fondest  memories  stay. 

She  loves  yon  pine-bemurmured  ridge 

Where  now  our  broad-browed  poet  sleeps, 

Dear  to  both  Englands  ;  near  him  he 

Who  wore  the  ring  of  Canace  ; 


24  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

But  most  her  heart  to  rapture  leaps 

Where  stood  that  era-parting  bridge, 

O'er  which,  with  footfall  still  as  dew, 

The  Old  Time  passed  into  the  New  ; 

Where,  as  your  stealthy  river  creeps, 

He  whispers  to  his  listening  weeds 

Tales  of  sublimest  homespun  deeds. 

Here  English  law  and  English  thought 

'Gainst  the  self-will  of  England  fought ; 

And  here  were  men  (coequal  with  their  fate), 

Who   did   great   things,    unconscious  they  were 

great. 

They  dreamed  not  what  a  die  was  cast 
With  that  first  answering  shot ;  what  then  ? 
There  was  their  duty  ;  they  were  men 
Schooled  the  soul's  inward  gospel  to  obey, 
Though  leading  to  the  lion's  den. 
They  felt  the  habit- hallowed  world  give  way 


Ode  read  at  Concord.  25 

Beneath  their  lives,  and  on  went  they, 
Unhappy  who  was  last. 
When  Buttrick  gave  the  word, 
That  awful  idol  of  the  unchallenged  Past, 
Strong  in  their  love,  and  in  their  lineage  strong, 
Fell  crashing  :  if  they  heard  it  not, 
Yet  the  earth  heard, 
Nor  ever  hath  forgot, 
As  on  from  startled  throne  to  throne, 
Where  Superstition  sate  or  conscious  Wrong, 
A  shudder  ran  of  some  dread  birth  unknown. 
Thrice  venerable  spot ! 
River  more  fateful  than  the  Rubicon  ! 
O'er  those  red  planks,  to  snatch  her  diadem, 
Man's  Hope,  star-girdled,  sprang  with  them, 
And  over  ways  untried  the  feet  of  Doom  strode 
on. 


VII. 

THINK  you  these  felt  no  charms 

In  their  gray  homesteads  and  embowered  farms  ? 

In  household  faces  waiting  at  the  door 

Their  evening  step  should  lighten  up  no  more  ? 

In  fields  their  boyish  feet  had  known  ? 

In  trees  their  fathers'  hands  had  set, 

And  which  with  them  had  grown, 

Widening  each  year  their  leafy  coronet  ? 

Felt  they  no  pang  of  passionate  regret 

For  those  unsolid  goods  that  seem  so  much  our 

own  ? 
These  things  are  dear  to  every  man  that  lives, 


Ode  read  at  Concord.  27 

And  life  prized  more  for  what  it  lends  than  gives. 

Yea,  many  a  tie,  by  iteration  sweet, 

Strove  to  detain  their  fatal  feet ; 

And  yet  the  enduring  half  they  chose, 

Whose  choice  decides  a  man  life's  slave  or  king, 

The  invisible  things  of  God  before  the  seen  and 

known  : 

Therefore  their  memory  inspiration  blows 
With  echoes  gathering  on  from  zone  to  zone  ; 
For  manhood  is  the  one  immortal  thing 
Beneath  Time's  changeful  sky, 
And,  where  it  lightened  once,  from  age  to  age, 
Men  come  to  learn,  in  grateful  pilgrimage, 
That  length  of  days  is  knowing  when  to  die. 


VIII. 

WHAT  marvellous  change  of  things  and  men  ! 

She,  a  world-wandering  orphan  then, 

So  mighty  now !     Those  are  her  streams 

That  whirl  the  myriad,  myriad  wheels 

Of  all  that  does,  and  all  that  dreams, 

Of  all  that  thinks,  and  all  that  feels, 

Through  spaces  stretched  from  sea  to  sea; 

By  idle  tongues  and  busy  brains, 

By  who  doth  right,  and  who  refrains, 

Hers  are  our  losses  and  our  gains  ; 

Our  maker  and  our  victim  she. 


IX. 


MAIDEN  half  mortal,  half  divine, 

We  triumphed  in  thy  coming ;   to  the  brinks 

Our  hearts  were  filled  with  pride's  tumultuous 

wine  ; 

Better  to-day  who  rather  feels  than  thinks. 
Yet  will  some  graver  thoughts  intrude, 
And  cares  of  sterner  mood  ; 
They  won  thee  :  who  shall  keep  thee  ?     From 

the  deeps 

Where  discrowned  empires  o'er  their  ruins  brood, 
And   many   a   thwarted   hope   wrings    its   weak 

hands  and  weeps, 


30  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

I  hear  the  voice  as  of  a  mighty  wind 

From  all  heaven's  caverns  rushing  unconfined, 

"  I,  Freedom,  dwell  with  Knowledge :  I  abide 

With  men  whom  dust  of  faction  cannot  blind 

To  the  slow  tracings  of  the  Eternal  Mind ; 

With  men  by  culture  trained  and  fortified, 

Who  bitter  duty  to  sweet  lusts  prefer, 

Fearless  to  counsel  and  obey. 

Conscience  my  sceptre  is,  and  law  my  sword, 

Not  to  be  drawn  in  passion  or  in  play, 

But  terrible  to  punish  and  deter ; 

Implacable  as  God's  word, 

Like  it,  a  shepherd's  crook  to  them  that  blindly 

err. 

Your  firm-pulsed  sires,  my  martyrs  and  my  saints, 
Shoots  of  that  only  race  whose  patient  sense 
Hath  known  to  mingle  flux  with  permanence, 
Rated  my  chaste  denials  and  restraints 


Ode  read  at  Concord.  31 

Above  the  moment's  dear-paid  paradise  : 

Beware  lest,  shifting  with  Time's  gradual  creep, 

The  light  that  guided  shine  into  your  eyes. 

The  envious  Powers  of  ill  nor  wink  nor  sleep  : 

Be  therefore  timely  wise, 

Nor  laugh  when  this  one  steals,  and  that  one  lies, 

As  if  your  luck  could  cheat  those  sleepless  spies, 

Till  the  deaf  Fury  comes  your  house  to  sweep  !  " 

I  hear  the  voice,  and  unaffrighted  bow ; 

Ye  shall  not  be  prophetic  now, 

Heralds  of  ill,  that  darkening  fly 

Between  my  vision  and  the  rainbowed  sky, 

Or  on  the  left  your  hoarse  forebodings  croak 

From  many  a  blasted  bough 

On  Yggdrasil's  storm-sinewed  oak, 

That  once  was  green,  Hope  of  the  West,  as  thou  : 

Yet  pardon  if  I  tremble  while  I  boast ; 

For  I  have  loved  as  those  who  pardon  most. 


X. 


AWAY,  ungrateful  doubt,  away! 
At  least  she  is  our  own  to-day. 
Break  into  rapture,  my  song, 
Verses,  leap  forth  in  the  sun, 
Bearing  the  joyance  along 
Like  a  train  of  fire  as  ye  run  ! 
Pause  not  for  choosing  of  words, 
Let  them  but  blossom  and  sing 
Blithe  as  the  orchards  and  birds 
With  the  new  coming  of  spring! 
Dance  in  your  jollity,  bells ; 
Shout,  cannon  ;    cease  not,  ye  drums  ; 


Ode  read  at  Concord.  33 

Answer,  ye  hillside  and  dells  ; 
Bow,  all  ye  people !     She  comes, 
Radiant,  calm-fronted,  as  when 
She  hallowed  that  April  day. 
Stay  with  us !     Yes,  thou  shalt  stay, 
Softener  and  strengthener  of  men, 
Freedom,  not  won  by  the  vain, 
Not  to  be  courted  in  play, 
Not  to  be  kept  without  pain. 
Stay  with  us  !     Yes,  thou  wilt  stay, 
Handmaid  and  mistress  of  all, 
Kindler  of  deed  and  of  thought, 
Thou  that  to  hut  and  to  hall 
Equal  deliverance  brought ! 
Souls  of  her  martyrs,  draw  near, 
Touch  our  dull  lips  with  your  fire, 
That  we  may  praise  without  fear 
Her  our  delight,  our  desire, 


34  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Our  faith's  inextinguishable  star, 
Our  hope,  our  remembrance,  our  trust, 
Our  present,  our  past,  our  to  be, 
Who  will  mingle  her  life  with  our  dust 
And  makes  us  deserve  to  be  free  ! 


UNDER   THE    OLD    ELM. 


POEM   READ   AT  CAMBRIDGE    ON   THE    HUNDREDTH   AN, 

NIVERSARY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   TAKING  COMMAND 

OF   THE  AMERICAN  ARMY,   30  JULY,    1775. 


UNDER  THE   OLD   ELM. 

I. 
i. 

ORDS  pass  as   wind,  but   where   great 

deeds  were  done 
A  power  abides  transfused  from  sire  to 

son: 

The  boy  feels  deeper  meanings  thrill  his  ear, 
That  tingling  through  his  pulse  life-long  shall  run, 
With  sure  impulsion  to  keep  honor  clear, 
When,    pointing    down,    his    father     whispers, 
"  Here, 


38  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Here,   where   we   stand,    stood   he,    the    purely 

Great, 

Whose  soul  no  siren  passion  could  unsphere, 
Then  nameless,  now  a  power  and  mixed  with 

fate." 

Historic  town,  thou  holdest  sacred  dust, 
Once  known  to  men  as  pious,  learned,  just, 
And  one  memorial  pile  that  dares  to  last ; 
But  Memory  greets  with  reverential  kiss 
No  spot  in  all  thy  circuit  sweet  as  this, 
Touched  by  that  modest  glory  as  it  past, 
O'er  which  yon  elm  hath  piously  displayed 
These  hundred  years  its  monumental  shade. 

2. 

Of  our  swift  passage  through  this  scenery 
Of  life  and  death,  more  durable  than  we, 
What  landmark  so  congenial  as  a  tree 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  39 

Repeating  its  green  legend  every  spring, 
And,  with  a  yearly  ring, 
Recording  the  fair  seasons  as  they  flee, 
Type  of  our  brief  but  still-renewed  mortality  ? 
We  fall  as  leaves :  the  immortal  trunk  remains, 
Builded  with  costly  juice  of  hearts  and  brains 
Gone  to  the  mould  now,  whither  all  that  be 
Vanish  returnless,  yet  are  procreant  still 
In  human  lives  to  come  of  good  or  ill, 
And  feed  unseen  the  roots  of  Destiny. 


II. 


I. 

MEN'S  monuments,  grown  old,  forget  their  names 
They  should  eternize,  but  the  place 
Where  shining  souls  have  passed  imbibes  a  grace 
Beyond   mere   earth ;   some   sweetness   of  their 

fames 

Leaves  in  the  soil  its  unextinguished  trace, 
Pungent,  pathetic,  sad  with  nobler  aims, 
That  penetrates  our  lives   and   heightens  them 

or  shames. 

This  insubstantial  world  and  fleet 
Seems  solid  for  a  moment  when  we  stand 
On  dust  ennobled  by  heroic  feet 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  41 

Once  mighty  to  sustain  a  tottering  land, 

And  mighty  still  such  burthen  to  upbear, 

Nor   doomed   to   tread  the   path  of  things  that 

merely  were : 

Our  sense,  refined  with  virtue  of  the  spot, 
Across  the  mists  of  Lethe's  sleepy  stream 
Recalls  him,  the  sole  chief  without  a  blot, 
No  more  a  pallid  image  and  a  dream, 
But  as  he  dwelt  with  men  decorously  supreme. 

2. 

Our  grosser  minds  need  this  terrestrial  hint 

To  raise  long-buried  days  from  tombs  of  print : 

"  Here  stood  he,"  softly  we  repeat, 

And  lo,  the  statue  shrined  and  still 

In  that  gray  minster-front  we  call  the  Past, 

Feels  in  its  frozen  veins  our  pulses  thrill, 

Breathes  living  air  and  mocks  at  Death's  deceit. 


42  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

It  warms,  it  stirs,  comes  down  to  us  at  last, 
Its  features  human  with  familiar  light, 
A  man,  beyond  the  historian's  art  to  kill, 
Or  sculptor's  to  efface  with  patient  chisel-blight. 

3- 

Sure    the   dumb   earth    hath    memory,    nor   for 

naught 

Was  Fancy  given,  on  whose  enchanted  loom 
Present  and  Past  commingle,  fruit  and  bloom 
Of  one  fair  bough,  inseparably  wrought 
Into  the  seamless  tapestry  of  thought. 
So  charmed,  with  undeluded  eye  we  see 
In  history's  fragmentary  tale 
Bright  clews  of  continuity, 
Learn  that  high  natures  over  Time  prevail, 
And  feel  ourselves  a  link  in  that  entail 
That  binds  all  ages  past  with  all  that  are  to  be. 


III. 


I. 

BENEATH  our  consecrated  elm 
A  century  ago  he  stood, 

Famed  vaguely  for  that  old  fight  in  the  wood 
Whose   red  surge  sought,  but  could  not  over 
whelm 
The  life   foredoomed   to  wield   our   rough-hewn 

helm  :  — 

From  colleges,  where  now  the  gown 
To  arms  had  yielded,  from  the  town, 
Our  rude  self-summoned  levies  flocked  to  see 
The  new-come  chiefs  and  wonder  which  was  he. 
No  need  to  question  long ;  close-lipped  and  tall, 


44  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Long  trained  in  murder-brooding  forests  lone 
To  bridle  others'  clamors  and  his  own, 
Firmly  erect,  he  towered  above  them  all, 
The  incarnate  discipline  that  was  to  free 
With  iron  curb  that  armed  democracy. 

2. 

A  motley  rout  was  that  which  came  to  stare, 
In  raiment  tanned  by  years  of  sun  and  storm, 
Of  every  shape  that  was  not  uniform, 
Dotted  with  regimentals  here  and  there  ; 
An  army  all  of  captains,  used  to  pray 
And  stiff  in  fight,  but  serious  drill's  despair, 
Skilled  to  debate  their  orders,  not  obey ; 
Deacons  were  there,  selectmen,  men  of  note 
In    half-tamed    hamlets    ambushed    round    with 

woods, 
Ready  to  settle  Freewill  by  a  vote, 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  45 

But  largely  liberal  to  its  private  moods  ; 
Prompt  to  assert  by  manners,  voice,  or  pen, 
Or  ruder  arms,  their  rights  as  Englishmen, 
Nor  much  fastidious  as  to  how  and  when : 
Yet  seasoned  stuff  and  fittest  to  create 
A  thought-staid  army  or  a  lasting  state : 
Haughty  they  said  he  was,  at  first ;  severe  ; 
Rut  owned,  as  all  men  own,  the  steady  hand 
Upon  the  bridle,  patient  to  command, 
Prized,  as  all  prize,  the  justice  pure  from  fear, 
And  learned  to  honor  first,  then  love  him,  then 

revere. 

Such  power  there  is  in  clear-eyed  self-restraint 
And  purpose  clean  as  light  from   every  selfish 

taint. 

3- 

Musing  beneath  the  legendary  tree, 

The  years  between  furl  off:  I  seem  to  see 


46  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

The  sun-flecks,  shaken  the  stirred  foliage  through, 
Dapple  with  gold  his  sober  buff  and  blue 
And  weave  prophetic  aureoles  round  the  head 
That  shines  our  beacon  now  nor  darkens  with 

the  dead. 

O,  man  of  silent  mood, 
A  stranger  among  strangers  then, 
How  art   thou   since  renowned  the  Great,  the 

Good, 

Familiar  as  the  day  in  all  the  homes  of  men ! 
The  winged  years,  that  winnow  praise  and  blame, 
Blow  many  names  out :  they  but  fan  to  flame 
The  self-renewing  splendors  of  thy  fame. 


IV. 


How  many  subtlest  influences  unite, 

With  spiritual  touch  of  joy  or  pain, 

Invisible  as  air  and  soft  as  light, 

To  body  forth  that  image  of  the  brain 

We  call  our  Country,  visionary  shape, 

Loved  more  than  woman,  fuller  of  fire  than  wine, 

Whose  charm  can  none  define, 

Nor  any,  though  he  flee  it,  can  escape ! 

All  party-colored  threads  the  weaver  Time 

Sets  in  his  web,  now  trivial,  now  sublime, 

All  memories,  all  forebodings,  hopes  and  fears, 

Mountain  and  river,  forest,  prairie,  sea, 


48  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

A  hill,  a  rock,  a  homestead,  field,  or  tree, 
The  casual  gleanings  of  unreckoned  years, 
Take  goddess-shape  at  last  and  there  is  She, 
Old  at  our  birth,  new  as  the  springing  hours, 
Shrine  of  our  weakness,  fortress  of  our  powers, 
Consoler,  kindler,  peerless  mid  her  peers, 
A  force  that  'neath  our  conscious  being  stirs, 
A  life  to  give  ours  permanence,  when  we 
Are  borne  to  mingle  our  poor  earth  with  hers, 
And  all  this  glowing  world  goes  with  us  on  our 
biers. 

2. 

Nations  are  long  results,  by  ruder  ways 
Gathering  the  might  that  warrants  length  of  days  ; 
They  may  be  pieced  of  half-reluctant  shares 
Welded    by    hammer-strokes    of    broad-brained 
kings, 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  49 

Or  from  a  doughty  people  grow,  the  heirs 
Of  wise  traditions  widening  cautious  rings  ; 
At  best  they  are  computable  things, 
A  strength  behind  us  making  us  feel  bold 
In  right,  or,  as  may  chance,  in  wrong ; 
Whose  force  by  figures  may  be  summed  and  told, 
So  many  soldiers,  ships,  and  dollars  strong, 
And  we  but  drops  that  bear  compulsory  part 
In  the  dumb  throb  of  a  mechanic  heart ; 
But  Country  is  a  shape  of  each  man's  mind 
Sacred  from  definition,  unconfined 
By  the   cramped    walls   where   daily  drudgeries 

grind  ; 

An  inward  vision,  yet  an  outward  birth 
Of  sweet  familiar  heaven  and  earth; 
A  brooding  Presence  that  stirs  motions  blind 
Of  wings  within  our  embryo  being's  shell 
That  wait  but  her  completer  spell 


50  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

To  make  us  eagle-natnred,  fit  to  dare 
Life's  nobler  spaces  and  untarnished  air. 

3- 

You,  who  hold  dear  this  self-conceived  ideal, 
Whose  faith  and  works  alone  can  make  it  real, 
Bring  all  your  fairest  gifts  to  deck  her  shrine 
Who  lifts  our  lives  away  from  Thine  and  Mine 
And  feeds  the  lamp  of  manhood  more  divine 
With  fragrant  oils  of  quenchless  constancy. 
When  all  have  done  their  utmost,  surely  he 
Hath  given  the  best  who  gives  a  character 
Erect  and  constant,  which  nor  any  shock 
Of  loosened  elements,  nor  the  forceful  sea 
Of  flowing  or  of  ebbing  fates,  can  stir 
From  its  deep  bases  in  the  living  rock 
Of  ancient  manhood's  sweet  security : 
And  this  he  gave,  serenely  far  from  pride 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  5  i 

As  baseness,  boon  with  prosperous  stars  allied, 
Part  of  what  nobler  seed  shall  in  our  loins  abide. 

4- 

No  bond  of  men  as  common  pride  so  strong, 
In  names  time-filtered  for  the  lips  of  song, 
Still  operant,  with  the  primal  Forces  bound 
Whose  currents,  on  their  spiritual  round, 
Transfuse  our  mortal  will  nor  are  gainsaid : 
These  are  their  arsenals,  these  the  exhaustless 

mines 

That  give  a  constant  heart  in  great  designs  ; 
These  are  the  stuff  whereof  such  dreams  are  made 
As  make  heroic  men :  thus  surely  he 
Still  holds  in  place  the  massy  blocks  he  laid 
'Neath  our  new  frame,  enforcing  soberly 
The  self-control  that  makes  and  keeps  a  people 

free. 


V. 


O,  FOR  a  drop  of  that  Cornelian  ink 

Which  gave  Agricola  dateless  length  of  days, 

To  celebrate  him  fitly,  neither  swerve 

To  phrase  unkempt,  nor  pass  discretion's  brink, 

With  him  so  statue-like  in  sad  reserve, 

So  diffident  to  claim,  so  forward  to  deserve  ! 

Nor  need  I  shun  due  influence  of  his  fame 

Who,  mortal  among  mortals,  seemed  as  now 

The  equestrian  shape  with  unimpassioned  brow, 

That  paces  silent  on  through  vistas  of  acclaim. 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  53 

2. 

What  figure  more  immovably  august 
Than  that  grave  strength  so  patient  and  so  pure, 
Calm  in  good  fortune,  when  it  wavered,  sure, 
That  mind  serene,  impenetrably  just, 
Modelled  on  classic  lines  so  simple  they  endure  ? 
That  soul  so  softly  radiant  and  so  white 
The  track  it  left  seems  less  of  fire  than  light, 
Cold  but  to  such  as  love  distemperature  ? 
And  if  pure  light,  as  some  deem,  be  the  force 
That  drives  rejoicing  planets  on  their  course, 
Why  for  his  power  benign  seek  an  impurer  source  ? 
His  was  the  true  enthusiasm  that  burns  long, 
Domestically  bright, 

Fed  from  itself  and  shy  of  human  sight, 
The  hidden  force  that  makes  a  lifetime  strong, 
And  not  the  short-lived  fuel  of  a  song. 


54  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Passionless,  say  you  ?     What  is  passion  for 
But  to  sublime  our  natures  and  control 
To  front  heroic  toils  with  late  return, 
Or  none,  or  such  as  shames  the  conqueror  ? 
That  fire  was  fed  with  substance  of  the  soul 
And  not  with  holiday  stubble,  that  could  burn, 
Unpraised  of  men  who  after  bonfires  run, 
Through  seven  slow  years  of  unadvancing  war, 
Equal  when  fields  were  lost  or  fields  were  won, 
With  breath  of  popular  applause  or  blame, 
Nor  fanned  nor  damped,  unquenchably  the  same, 
Too  inward  to  be  reached  by  flaws  of  idle  fame. 

3- 

Soldier  and  statesman,  rarest  unison  ; 
High-poised  example  of  great  duties  done 
Simply  as  breathing,  a  world's  honors  worn 
As  life's  indifferent  gifts  to  all  men  born  ; 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  55 

Dumb  for  himself,  unless  it  were  to  God, 
But  for  his  barefoot  soldiers  eloquent, 
Tramping  the  snow  to  coral  where  they  trod, 
Held  by  his  awe  in  hollow-eyed  content  ; 
Modest,  yet  firm  as  Nature's  self;    unblamed 
Save  by  the  men  his  nobler  temper  shamed  ; 
Never  seduced  through  show  of  present  good 
By  other  than  unsetting  lights  to  steer 
New-trimmed   in   Heaven,    nor  than    his   stead 
fast  mood 

More  steadfast,  far  from  rashness  as  from  fear; 
Rigid,  but  with  himself  first,  grasping  still 
In  swerveless  poise  the  wave-beat  helm  of  will  ; 
Not  honored  then  or  now  because  he  wooed 
The  popular  voice,  but  that  he  still  withstood  ; 
Broad-minded,  higher-souled,  there  is  but  one 
Who   was   all   this  and   ours,   and   all  men's,  — 
WASHINGTON. 


56  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

4- 

Minds  strong  by  fits,  irregularly  great, 

That  flash  and  darken  like  revolving  lights, 

Catch  more  the  vulgar  eye  unschooled   to  wait 

On  the  long  curve  of  patient  days  and  nights 

Rounding  a  whole  life  to  the  circle  fair 

Of  orbed  fulfilment ;    and  this  balanced  soul, 

So  simple  in  its  grandeur,  coldly  bare 

Of  draperies  theatric,  standing  there 

In  perfect  symmetry  of  self-control, 

Seems  not  so  great  at  first,  but  greater  grows 

Still  as  we  look,  and  by  experience  learn 

How  grand  this  quiet  is,  how  nobly  stern 

The    discipline    that   wrought    through   lifelong 

throes 
That  energetic  passion  of  repose. 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  57 

5- 

A  nature  too  decorous  and  severe, 
Too  self-respectful  in  its  griefs  and  joys, 
For  ardent  girls  and  boys 
Who  find  no  genius  in  a  mind  so  clear 
That  its  grave  depths  seem   obvious  and  near, 
Nor  a  soul  great  that  made  so  little  noise. 
They  feel  no  force  in  that  calm-cadenced  phrase, 
The  habitual  full-dress  of  his  well-bred  mind, 
That  seems  to  pace  the  minuet's  courtly  maze 
And  tell  of  ampler  leisures,  roomier  length  of 

days. 

His  firm-based  brain,  to  self  so  little  kind 
That  no  tumultuary  blood  could  blind, 
Formed  to  control  men,  not  amaze, 
Looms  not   like   those   that   borrow   height  of 

haze  : 


58  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

It  was  a  world  of  statelier  movement  then 
Than  this  we  fret  in,  he  a  denizen 
Of  that    ideal    Rome    that    made    a    man    for 
men. 


VI. 


I. 

THE  longer  on  this  earth  we  live 

And  weigh  the  various  qualities  of  men, 

Seeing  how  most  are  fugitive, 

Or  fitful  gifts,  at  best,  of  now  and  then, 

Wind-wavered  corpse-lights,  daughters  of  the  fen, 

The  more  we  feel  the  high  stern-featured  beauty 

Of  plain  devotedness  to  duty, 

Steadfast  and  still,  nor  paid  with  mortal  praise, 

But  finding  amplest  recompense 

For  life's  ungarlanded  expense 

In  work  done  squarely  and  unwasted  days. 

For  this  we  honor  him,  that  he  could  know 


60  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

How  sweet  the  service  and  how  free 

Of  her,  God's  eldest  daughter  here  below, 

And  choose  in  meanest  raiment  which  was  she. 

2. 

Placid  completeness,  life  without  a  fall 

From   faith   or  highest  aims,  truth's  breachless 

wall, 

Surely  if  any  fame  can  bear  the  touch, 
His  will  say  "  Here  !  "  at  the  last  trumpet's  call, 
The  unexpressive  man  whose  life  expressed  so 

much. 


VII. 

I. 

NEVER  to  see  a  nation  born 

Hath  been  given  to  mortal  man, 

Unless  to  those  who,  on  that  summer  morn, 

Gazed  silent  when  the  great  Virginian 

Unsheathed  the  sword  whose  fatal  flash 

Shot  union  through  the  incoherent  clash 

Of  our  loose  atoms,  crystallizing  them 

Around  a  single  will's  unpliant  stem, 

And  making  purpose  of  emotion  rash. 

Out  of  that  scabbard  sprang,  as  from  its  womb, 

Nebulous  at  first  but  hardening  to  a  star, 

Through  mutual  share  of  sunburst  and  of  gloom, 

The  common  faith  that  made  us  what  we  are. 


62  Three  Memorial  Poems. 


2. 

That  lifted  blade  transformed  our  jangling  clans, 
Till  then  provincial,  to  Americans, 
And  made  a  unity  of  wildering  plans ; 
Here  was  the  doom  fixed :    here  is  marked  the 

date 

When  this  New  World  awoke  to  man's  estate, 
Burnt  its  last  ship  and  ceased  to  look  behind : 
Nor  thoughtless  was  the  choice ;  no  love  or 

hate 

Could  from  its  poise  move  that  deliberate  mind, 
Weighing  between  too  early  and  too  late 
Those  pitfalls  of  the  man  refused  by  Fate : 
His  was  the  impartial  vision  of  the  great 
Who  see  not  as  they  wish,  but  as  they  find. 
He  saw  the  dangers  of  defeat,  nor  less 
The  incomputable  perils  of  success; 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  63 

The  sacred  past  thrown  by,  an  empty  rind ; 
The  future,  cloud-land,  snare  of  prophets  blind  ; 
The  waste  of  war,  the  ignominy  of  peace  ; 
On  either  hand  a  sullen  rear  of  woes, 
Whose  garnered  lightnings  none  could  guess, 
Piling  its  thunder-heads  and  muttering  "  Cease  !  " 
Yet  drew  not  back  his  hand,  but  gravely  chose 
The  seeming-desperate    task    whence    our    new 
nation  rose. 


3- 

A  noble  choice  and  of  immortal  seed ! 
Nor  deem  that  acts  heroic  wait  on  chance 

Or  easy  were  as  in  a  boy's  romance ; 

» 
The  man's  whole  life  preludes  the  single  deed 

That  shall  decide  if  his  inheritance 

Be  with  the  sifted  few  of  matchless  breed, 


64  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Our  race's  sap  and  sustenance, 

Or   with    the    unmotived    herd    that   only  sleep 

and  feed. 

Choice  seems  a  thing  indifferent ;  thus  or  so, 
What  matters  it  ?     The  Fates  with  mocking  face 
Look  on  inexorable,  nor  seem  to  know 
Where   the   lot   lurks    that  gives  life's  foremost 

place. 

Yet  Duty's  leaden  casket  holds  it  still, 
And  but  two  ways  are  offered  to  our  will, 
Toil  with  rare  triumph,  ease  with  safe  disgrace, 
The  problem  still  for  us  and  all  of  human  race. 
He   chose,   as  men   choose,  where  most  danger 

showed, 

Nor  ever  faltered  'neath  the  load 
» 

Of  petty  cares,  that  gall  great  hearts  the  most, 
But  kept  right  on  the  strenuous  up-hill  road, 
Strong  to  the  end,  above  complaint  or  boast : 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  6= 

The  popular  tempest  on  his  rock-mailed  coast' 

Wasted  its  wind-borne  spray, 

The  noisy  marvel  of  a  day ; 

His  soul  sate  still  in  its  unstormed  abode. 


VIII. 

VIRGINIA  gave  us  this  imperial  man 

Cast  in  the  massive  mould 

Of  those  high-statured  ages  old 

Which  into  grander  forms  our  mortal  metal  ran  ; 

She  gave  us  this  unblemished  gentleman : 

What    shall   we   give   her   back  but    love    and 

praise 

As  in  the  dear  old  unestranged  days 
Before  the  inevitable  wrong  began  ? 
Mother  of  States  and  undiminished  men, 
Thou  gavest  us  a  country,  giving  him, 
And  we  owe  alway  what  we  owed  thee  then  : 


Under  the  Old  Elm.  67 

The  boon  thou  wouldst  have  snatched  from  us 

agen 

Shines  as  before  with  no  abatement  dim. 
A  great  man's  memory  is  the  only  thing 
With  influence  to  outlast  the  present  whim 
And  bind  us  as  when  here  he  knit  our  golden 

ring. 

All  of  him  that  was  subject  to  the  hours 
Lies  in  thy  soil  and  makes  it  part  of  ours : 
Across  more  recent  graves, 
Where  unresentful  Nature  waves 
Her  pennons  o'er  the  shot-ploughed  sod, 
Proclaiming  the  sweet  Truce  of  God, 
We  from  this  consecrated  plain  stretch  out 
Our  hands  as  free  from  afterthought  or  doubt 
As  here  the  united  North 
Poured  her  embrowned  manhood  forth 
In  welcome  of  our  savior  and  thy  son. 


68  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Through  battle  we  have  better  learned  thy  worth, 
The  long-breathed  valor  and  undaunted  will, 
Which,  like  his  own,  the  day's  disaster  done, 
Could,  safe  in  manhood,  suffer  and  be  still. 
Both  thine  and  ours  the  victory  hardly  won  ; 
If  ever  with  distempered  voice  or  pen 
We    have    misdeemed    thee,    here    we    take    it 

back, 

And  for  the  dead  of  both  don  common  black. 
Be  to  us  evermore  as  thou  wast  then, 
As  we  forget  thou  hast  not  always  been, 
Mother  of  States  and  unpolluted  men, 
Virginia,    fitly   named    from    England's    manly 

queen  ! 


AN    ODE 

FOR  THE   FOURTH   OF  JULY,    1876. 


AN    ODE 


FOR  THE   FOURTH   OF  JULY,    1876. 


I. 

NTRANCED  I  saw  a  vision  in  the  cloud 
That  loitered  dreaming  in  yon  sunset 

sky, 

Full  of  fair  shapes,  half  creatures  of  the  eye, 
Half  chance-evoked  by  the  wind's  fantasy 
In  golden  mist,  an  ever-shifting  crowd  : 
There,  mid  unreal  forms  that  came  and  went 
In  robes  air-spun,  of  evanescent  dye, 


72  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

A  woman's  semblance  shone  pre-eminent ; 
Not  armed  like  Pallas,  not  like  Hera  proud, 
But,  as  on  household  diligence  intent, 
Beside  her  visionary  wheel  she  bent 
Like  Arete  or  Bertha,  nor  than  they 
Less  queenly  in  her  port :   about  her  knee 
Glad  children  clustered  confident  in  play : 
Placid  her  pose,  the  calm  of  energy ; 
And  over  her  broad  brow  in  many  a  round 
(That  loosened  would    have  gilt   her  garment's 

hem), 

Succinct,  as  toil  prescribes,  the  hair  was  wound 
In  lustrous  coils,  a  natural  diadem. 
The   cloud   changed    shape,    obsequious    to    the 

whim 

Of  some  transmuting  influence  felt  in  me, 
And,  looking  now,  a  wolf  I  seemed  to  see 
Limned  in  that  vapor,  gaunt  and  hunger-bold, 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  73 

Threatening  her  charge :   resolve  in  every  limb, 
Erect  she  flamed  in  mail  of  sun-wove  gold, 
Penthesilea's  self  for  battle  dight ; 
One  arm  uplifted  braced  a  flickering  spear, 
And  one  her  adamantine  shield  made  light ; 
Her  face,  helm-shadowed,  grew  a  thing  to  fear, 
And  her  fierce  eyes,  by  danger  challenged,  took 
Her  trident-sceptred  mother's  dauntless  look. 
"  I  know  thee  now,  O  goddess-born ! "  I  cried, 
And  turned  with  loftier  brow  and  firmer  stride ; 
For  in  .that  spectral  cloud-work  I  had  seen 
Her  image,  bodied  forth  by  love  and  pride, 
The  fearless,  the  benign,  the  mother-eyed, 
The  fairer  world's  toil-consecrated  queen. 

2. 

What  shape  by  exile  dreamed  elates  the  mind 
Like  hers  whose  hand,  a  fortress  of  the  poor, 


74  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

No  blood  in  lawful  vengeance  spilt  bestains  ? 
Who  never  turned  a  suppliant  from  her  door  ? 
Whose  conquests  are  the  gains  of  all  mankind  ? 
To-day  her  thanks  shall  fly  on  every  wind, 
Unstinted,  unrebuked,  from  shore  to  shore, 
One  love,  one  hope,  and  not  a  doubt  behind  ! 
Cannon  to  cannon  shall  repeat  her  praise, 
Banner  to  banner  flap  it  forth  in  flame  ; 
Her  children  shall  rise  up  to  bless  her  name, 
And  wish  her  harmless  length  of  days, 
The  mighty  mother  of  a  mighty  brood, 
Blessed  in  all  tongues  and  dear  to  every  blood, 
The  beautiful,  the  strong,  and,  best  of  all,  the 
good ! 

3- 

Seven  years  long  was  the  bow 
Of  battle  bent,  and  the  heightening 
Storm-heaps  convulsed  with  the  throe 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  75 

Of  their  uncontainable  lightening ; 

Seven  years  long  heard  the  sea 

Crash  of  navies  and  wave-borne  thunder  ; 

Then  drifted  the  cloud-rack  a-lee, 

And  new  stars  were  seen,  a  world's  wonder ; 

Each  by  her  sisters  made  bright, 

All  binding  all  to  their  stations, 

Cluster  of  manifold  light 

Startling  the  old  constellations : 

Men  looked  up  and  grew  pale  : 

Was  it  a  comet  or  star, 

Omen  of  blessing  or  bale, 

Hung  o'er  the  ocean  afar  ? 

4- 

Stormy  the  day  of  her  birth  : 
Was  she  not  born  of  the  strong, 
She,  the  last  ripeness  of  earth, 


76  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Beautiful,  prophesied  long? 
Stormy  the  days  of  her  prime : 
Hers  are  the  pulses  that  beat 
Higher  for  perils  sublime, 
Making  them  fawn  at  her  feet. 
Was  she  not  born  of  the  strong  ? 
Was  she  not  born  of  the  wise  ? 
Daring  and  counsel  belong 
Of  right  to  her  confident  eyes : 
Human  and  motherly  they, 
Careless  of  station  or  race : 
Hearken !  her  children  to-day 
Shout  for  the  joy  of  her  face. 


II. 


I. 

No  praises  of  the  past  are  hers, 
No  fanes  by  hallowing  time  caressed, 
No  broken  arch  that  ministers 
To  some  sad  instinct  in  the  breast : 
She  has  not  gathered  from  the  years 
Grandeur  of  tragedies  and  tears, 
Nor  from  long  leisure  the  unrest 
That  finds  repose  in  forms  of  classic  grace : 
These  may  delight  the  coming  race 
Who  haply  shall  not  count  it  to  our  crime 
That  we  who  fain  would  sing  are  here  before 
our  time. 


78  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

She  also  hath  her  monuments ; 

Not  such  as  stand  decrepitly  resigned 

To  ruin-mark  the  path  of  dead  events 

That  left  no  seed  of  better  days  behind, 

The  tourist's  pensioners  that  show  their  scars 

And  maunder  of  forgotten  wars  ; 

She  builds  not  on  the  ground,  but  in  the  mind, 

Her  open-hearted  palaces 

For    larger-thoughted    men    with    heaven    and 

earth  at  ease : 

Her  march  the  plump   mow  marks,  the  sleep 
less  wheel, 

The  golden  sheaf,  the  self-swayed  commonweal ; 
The  happy  homesteads  hid  in  orchard  trees 
Whose  sacrificial  smokes  through  peaceful  air 
Rise    lost    in     heaven,     the    household's    silent 

prayer ; 
What  architect  hath  bettered  these  ? 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  79 

With  softened  eye  the  westward  traveller  sees 
A  thousand  miles  of  neighbors  side  by  side, 
Holding  by  toil-won  titles  fresh  from  God 
The  lands  no  serf  or  seigneur  ever  trod, 
With  manhood  latent  in  the  very  sod, 
Where  the  long  billow  of  the  wheat-field's  tide 
Flows  to  the  sky  across  the  prairie  wide, 
A  sweeter  vision  than  the  castled  Rhine, 
Kindly  with  thoughts  of  Ruth  and  Bible-days 
benign. 

2. 

O  ancient  commonwealths,  that  we  revere 
Haply  because  we  could  not  know  you  near, 
Your  deeds  like  statues  down  the  aisles  of  Time 
Shine  peerless  in  memorial  calm  sublime, 
And  Athens  is  a  trumpet  still,  and  Rome  ; 
Yet  which  of  your  achievements  is  not  foam 


So  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

Weighed  with  this  one  of  hers  (below  you  far 
In  fame,  and  born  beneath  a  milder  star), 
That  to  Earth's  orphans,  far  as  curves  the  dome, 
Of  death-deaf  sky,  the  bounteous  West  means 

home, 

With  dear  precedency  of  natural  ties 
That  stretch  from  roof  to  roof  and  make  men 

gently  wise  ? 

And  if  the  nobler  passions  wane, 
Distorted  to  base  use,  if  the  near  goal 
Of  insubstantial  gain 

Tempt  from  the  proper  race-course  of  the  soul 
That  crowns  their  patient  breath 
Whose    feet,    song-pinioned,    are    too    fleet    for 

Death, 

Yet  may  she  claim  one  privilege  urbane 
And  haply  first  upon  the  civic  roll, 
That  none  can  breathe  her  air  nor  grow  humane. 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  Si 

• 

3- 

O,  better  far  the  briefest  hour 

Of  Athens  self-consumed,  whose  plastic  power 

Hid  Beauty  safe  from  Death  in  words  or  stone ; 

Of  Rome,  fair  quarry  where  those  eagles  crowd 

Whose  fulgurous  vans  about  the  world  had  blown 

Triumphant  storm  and  seeds  of  polity ; 

Of  Venice,  fading  o'er  her  shipless  sea, 

Last  iridescence  of  a  sunset  cloud  ; 

Than  this  inert  prosperity, 

This  bovine  comfort  in  the  sense  alone  ! 

Yet  art  came  slowly  even  to  such  as  those, 

Whom  no  past  genius  cheated  of  their  own 

With  prudence  of  o'ermastering  precedent  ; 

Petal  by  petal  spreads  the  perfect  rose, 

Secure  of  the  divine  event  ; 

And  only  children  rend  the  bud  half-blown 


82  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

To  forestall  Nature  in  her  calm  intent : 
Time  hath  a  quiver  full  of  purposes 
Which  miss  not  of  their  aim,  to  us  unknown, 
And  brings  about  the  impossible  with  ease  : 
Haply  for  us  the  ideal  dawn  shall  break 
From  where  in  legend-tinted  line 
The  peaks  of  Hellas  drink  the  morning's  wine, 
To  tremble  on  our  lids  with  mystic  sign 
Till  the  drowsed  ichor  in  our  veins  awake 
And  set  our  pulse  in  tune  with  moods  divine  : 
Long  the  day  lingered  in  its  sea-fringed  nest, 
Then  touched  the  Tuscan  hills  with  golden  lance 
And  paused  ;  then  on  to  Spain  and  France 
The  splendor  flew,  and  Albion's  misty  crest : 
Shall  Ocean  bar  him  from  his  destined  West  ? 
Or  are  we,  then,  arrived  too  late, 
Doomed  with  the  rest  to  grope  disconsolate, 
Foreclosed  of  Beauty  by  our  modern  date  ? 


III. 

I. 

POETS,  as  their  heads  grow  gray, 
Look  from  too  far  behind  the  eyes, 
Too  long-experienced  to  be  wise 
In  guileless  youth's  diviner  way  ; 
Life  sings  not  now,  but  prophesies  ; 
Time's  shadows  they  no  more  behold, 
But,  under  them,  the  riddle  old 
That  mocks,  bewilders,  and  defies  : 
In  childhood's  face  the  seed  of  shame, 
In  the  green  tree  an  ambushed  flame, 
In  Phosphor  a  vaunt-guard  of  Night, 
They,  though  against  their  will,  divine, 


84  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

And  dread  the  care-dispelling  wine 
Stored  from  the  Muse's  vintage  bright, 
By  age  imbued  with  second-sight. 
From  Faith's  own  eyelids  there  peeps  out, 
Even  as  they  look,  the  leer  of  doubt  ; 
The  festal  wreath  their  fancy  loads 
With  care  that  whispers  and  forebodes  : 
Nor  this  our  triumph-day  can  blunt  Megaera's 
goads. 


2. 

Murmur  of  many  voices  in  the  air 
Denounces  us  degenerate, 
Unfaithful  guardians  of  a  noble  fate, 
And  prompts  indifference  or  despair : 
Is  this  the  country  that  we  dreamed  in  youth, 
Where  wisdom   and   not   numbers   should   have 
weight, 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  85 

Seed-field  of  simpler  manners,  braver  truth, 
Where  shams  should  cease  to  dominate 
In  household,  church,  and  state  ? 
Is  this  Atlantis  ?     This  the  unpoisoned  soil, 
Sea-whelmed  for  ages  and  recovered  late, 
Where  parasitic  greed  no  more  should  coil 
Round  Freedom's  stem  to  bend  awry  and  blight 
What  grew  so  fair,  sole  plant  of  love  and  light  ? 
Who  sit  where  once  in  crowned  seclusion  sate 
The  long-proved  athletes  of  debate 
Trained  from  their  youth,  as  none  thinks  need 
ful  now  ? 

Is  this  debating-club  where  boys  dispute, 
And  wrangle  o'er  their  stolen  fruit, 
The  Senate,  erewhile  cloister  of  the  few, 
Where  Clay  once  flashed  and  Webster's  cloudy 

brow 

Brooded    those    bolts    of   thought    that    all    the 
horizon  knew  ? 


86  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

3- 

O,  as  this  pensive  moonlight  blurs  my  pines, 
Here  as  I  sit  and  meditate  these  lines, 
To  gray-green  dreams  of  what  they  are  by  day, 
So  would  some  light,  not  reason's  sharp-edged  ray, 
Trance  me  in  moonshine  as  before  the  flight 
Of  years  had  won  me  this  unwelcome  right 
To  see  things  as  they  are,  or  shall  be  soon, 
In  the  frank  prose  of  undissembling  noon  ! 

4- 

Back  to  my  breast,  ungrateful  sigh ! 
Whoever  fails,  whoever  errs, 
The  penalty  be  ours,  not  hers ! 
The  present  still  seems  vulgar,  seen  too  nigh  ; 
The  golden  age  is  still  the  age  that  's  past : 
I  ask  no  drowsy  opiate 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  87 

To  dull  my  vision  of  that  only  state 

Founded  on  faith  in  man,  and  therefore  sure  to 

last. 

For,  O,  my  country,  touched  by  thee, 
The  gray  hairs  gather  back  their  gold  ; 
Thy  thought  sets  all  my  pulses  free ; 
The  heart  refuses  to  be  old  ; 
The  love  is  all  that  I  can  see. 
Not  to  thy  natal-day  belong 
Time's  prudent  doubt  or  age's  wrong, 
But  gifts  of  gratitude  and  song : 
Unsummoned  crowd  the  thankful  words, 
As  sap  in  spring-time  floods  the  tree, 
Foreboding  the  return  of  birds, 
For  all  that  thou  hast  been  to  me! 


IV. 


I. 

FLAWLESS  his  heart  and  tempered  to  the  core 
Who,  beckoned  by  the  forward-leaning  wave, 
First  left  behind  him  the  firm-footed  shore, 
And,  urged  by  every  nerve  of  sail  and  oar, 
Steered  for  the  Unknown  which  gods  to  mortals 

gave, 

Of  thought  and  action  the  mysterious  door, 
Bugbear  of  fools,  a  summons  to  the  brave : 
Strength  found  he  in  the  unsympathizing  sun, 
And  strange  stars  from  beneath  the  horizon  won, 
And  the  dumb  ocean  pitilessly  grave : 
High-hearted  surely  he ; 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  89 

But  bolder  they  who  first  off-cast 
Their  moorings  from  the  habitable  Past 
And  ventured  chartless  on  the  sea 
Of  storm-engendering  Liberty  : 
For  all  earth's  width  of  waters  is  a  span, 
And  their  convulsed  existence  mere  repose, 
Matched  with  the  unstable  heart  of  man, 
Shoreless  in  wants,  mist-girt  in  all  it  knows, 
Open  to  every  wind  of  sect  or  clan, 
And  sudden-passionate  in  ebbs  and  flows. 


They  steered  by  stars  the  elder  shipmen  knew, 
And  laid  their  courses  where  the  currents,  draw 
Of  ancient  wisdom  channelled  deep  in  law, 
The  undaunted  few 
Who  changed  the  Old  World  for  the  New, 


90  Three  Memorial  Poems. 

And  more  devoutly  prized 

Than  all  perfection  theorized 

The  more  imperfect  that  had  roots  and  grew. 

They  founded  deep  and  well, 

Those  danger-chosen  chiefs  of  men 

Who  still  believed  in  Heaven  and  Hell, 

Nor  hoped  to  find  a  spell, 

In  some  fine  flourish  of  a  pen, 

To  make  a  better  man 

Than  long-considering  Nature  will  or  can, 

Secure  against  his  own  mistakes, 

Content  with  what  life  gives  or  takes, 

And  acting  still  on  some  fore-ordered  plan, 

A  cog  of  iron  in  an  iron  wheel, 

Too  nicely  poised  to  think  or  feel, 

Dumb  motor  in  a  clock-like  commonweal. 

They  wasted  not  their  brain  in  schemes 

Of  what  man  might  be  in  some  bubble-sphere, 


An  Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July.          91 

As  if  he  must  be  other  than  he  seems 
Because  he  was  not  what  he  should  be  here, 
Postponing  Time's  slow  proof  to  petulant  dreams  : 
Yet  herein  they  were  great 
Beyond  the  incredulous  lawgivers  of  yore, 
And  wiser  than  the  wisdom  of  the  shelf, 
That  they  conceived  a  deeper-rooted  state, 
Of  hardier  growth,  alive  from  rind  to  core, 
By  making  man  sole  sponsor  of  himself. 


3- 

God  of  our  fathers,  Thou  who  wast, 

Art,  and  shalt  be  when  those  eye-wise  who  flout 

Thy  secret  presence  shall  be  lost 

In'  the  great  light  that  dazzles  them  to  doubt, 

We,  sprung  from  loins  of  stalwart  men 

Whose  strength  was  in  their  trust 


92  TJiree  Memorial  Poems. 

That  Thou  wouldst  make  thy  dwelling  in  their 

dust 

And  walk  with  them  a  fellow-citizen 
Who  build  a  city  of  the  just, 
We,  who  believe  Life's  bases  rest 
Beyond  the  probe  of  chemic  test, 
Still,  like  our  fathers,  feel  Thee  near, 
Sure  that,  while  lasts  the  immutable  decree, 
The  land  to  Human  Nature  dear 
Shall  not  be  unbeloved  of  Thee. 


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